The Bible and migration
Why – and how – we need to ground our responses to human migration in the Scriptures
We need to ground our responses to human migration in the Scriptures. But we need to make sure we are reading the whole biblical text carefully.
by Tyler Horton
The Bible is essential to our responses to human migration.
On the one hand, we turn to God so that we can hear what we ought to do. What needs to change in our thinking and attitudes about migration? What is the church called to do and say, both as its members migrate and as it meets those who are migrating?
On the other hand, we turn to God’s Word because it is an essential source of power. It is only when there is a direct line between the gospel we cling to and the works we attempt that our efforts will have real potency. Scripture makes wise the simple and revives the soul (Psalm 19:7).
Think with the Bible
Having finished a PhD in Biblical Studies at the University of Cambridge earlier this year, I am a new addition to the Acts 11 Project. My organization (SIM UK) is sending me to this team so that I can focus on how our biblical and theological resources shape the interplay of mission and migration in the life of the church.
My role is to curate and create resources that will help the church to hear the call of God and be empowered as witnesses of God’s good news in the midst of the human migration that surrounds us.
The church has begun to recognise that the Bible often tells its story through migration. This recognition is important, but we need to go further.
For a start, not every text that describes migration is telling us what we should do about migration. This is also the case with many other topics, with food as an obvious example.
Take care with the text
In Ezekiel 4:9, the prophet is instructed to “take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt…and make bread for yourself.” Although some enterprising bakers have keyed in on this passage, few Christians would argue that this is a call to cull all other bread recipes.
Moving to Acts 10, Peter sees a vision with “all kinds of four-footed creatures” and God tells him to “kill and eat.” While this should not be taken as prohibition against vegetarianism, it is also true that this command to Peter has more extensive significance for Christian life than the list of grains that God gave to Ezekiel! The voice in Peter’s vision said to him, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (Acts 10:15), which was a direct shift from Old Testament law.
Just as we need to be sensitive about how the Bible deals with food, we also need to discern what God is actually calling us to in relation to migration from a broad range of texts. Not all of these texts will explicitly mention migration, but even when they do we need to be careful.
Migration as foundation
Take one of the foundational migration texts in the Bible. In Deuteronomy 26, the people are being instructed about what to do during the offering of their first fruits.
As they bring their produce to the priest, they would begin by saying: “My father was a wandering Aramean…” (Deuteronomy 26:5, NIV).
In this, we can see that the people of God were to have migration at the centre of their identity. Who are we? We are the descendants of a migrating man.
Migration as a problem
At the same time, migration is not presented a good thing here, but as a problem that has been solved.
The script for the first fruit offering carries on: my forefather was a migrant, but God “brought us into this place and gave us this land” (Deuteronomy 26:9).
The people of God bring their produce as an offering because they are no longer migrants. They remember that they descend from the migrant man so that they can celebrate that have been given a land.
They give thanks that now they are in a position to grow crops and say: “I bring the first fruits of the soil that you, LORD, have given me” (Deuteronomy 26:10).
They remember who they were, so that they can better appreciate who they are.
Migration as deliverance
There is yet another level to see in this passage. How did the people go from the wandering-Aramean status to the first-fruit-bringing status? “My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt and lived there…” (Deuteronomy 26:5).
Once in Egypt they were afflicted and made to work as slaves, cried out to the Lord, and were heard. “The LORD brought us out of Egypt…and brought us to this place” (Deuteronomy 26:8-9). So, God used migration to deliver them from migration!
It’s complicated…
From this passage we can say at least three things.
- The people of God are identified as descendants of a migrant.
- The people of God had been delivered from the condition of migration.
- God used migration to deliver them and give them a land.
What is migration?
It is a God-ordained identity marker for the people of God, a problem that needs to be solved, and a tool of deliverance in the hand of God. Moreover, it is all of those things within about 10 verses in Deuteronomy 26.
What this means for migration and mission today is another question. For now, I only want to point out that we need to hear the whole text because isolating any one part will only give a partial picture.
At the core of the work that we have set before us with the Acts 11 Project is to listen well as God speaks to us through his Word about migration.
Migration is a complex issue that raises complicated questions for the church, and we are committed to hearing the voice of God so that we will see what we are called to do, and so that the life-giving power of God’s Word will energise us to walk in all his ways.
Suggested resources
Here are a few resources that you can use to keep thinking further about mission and migration in the Bible:
- Migration and Mission: the second of Jehu Hanciles’ keynote talks at the Acts 11 Convergence conference from September 2024. In the first part of the video he talks about migration in the Bible, but you can also read more in the third chapter of his book, Migration and the Making of Global of Christianity.
- Refugees in God’s Story: a six week devotional, produced by Welcome Churches and written by Christians now living in the UK (£5).
- What Does the Bible Say About Migration?: a blog post from Luke Walton on the International Bible Advocacy Centre website, which also makes reference to a short film about migration titled Derelict.
